A Brief History of Chestnuts and New Hope

Reader Contribution by Jonny Malks
Published on November 18, 2020
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The indomitable chestnut.

A Glorious Staple Food

Chestnuts fall sometime between the last week of September and the first few weeks of October. They arrive during the heart of autumn in their sawtoothed green burrs to fill the season and, in many parts of the world, the year with a nourishing source of starch that is healthy for both our bodies and our land. Chestnuts have the capacity to be a staple crop, a foundational element of the American diet. They are much like corn in this way. However, there is a key difference between these two fundamental starches. Chestnuts grow on trees. While growing corn on a large scale means tilling and spraying toxic chemicals on the soil year after year, effectively eliminating any semblance of the microbial life that makes growing sustainable food possible, chestnuts are a no-till substitute that sequesters carbon and fixes topsoil. Sounds great, right? So, why don’t we see more chestnuts? Where did they all go? 

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